It’s always a good time to visit the Neon Museum and explore Las Vegas’ fascinating history through its signage, but this week there’s an exceptionally good reason to visit—they’re lighting a newly restored sign. On Friday, Sept. 26, at 6 p.m., the historical hot spot will relight the Dunes Hotel & Casino sign, a piece of artwork that represents the first major Strip property to leave us by implosion. Talk about a trendsetter!
Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
This restoration was no easy feat. In fact, our friends at the Neon Museum said it looked like the sign itself had come straight from the wreckage when they acquired it. That’s where Jesse Hartlauer and his company, Hartlauer Signs, come in. They make all kinds of displays, from the road signs you see to the directional signage that helps visitors navigate casino floors, but by far the most intriguing area of the workshop (and one Hartlauer clearly feels passionately about) is the neon workshop.
“The new styles are really modern and really basic and standard colors, where the old signs were fun,” Hartlauer says. “They were colorful with neon all over them. They flashed, they just came alive when you looked at them. I prefer the old ones, myself, a little bit. The craftsmanship and everything along with it is a part of our history.”
The sign that’s being relit is a 10-foot entrance sign from the property. It mirrors the shape and style of The Dunes’ grand, 150-foot neon sign, but actually doesn’t feature any neon. It’s lit by three internal lighting units to create a backlighting effect and about 100 candelabra lights that flash to create the classic sparkling effect many marquees have.
Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
“When we take these signs down, usually we’re not thinking of Neon Museums and stuff like that,” Hartlauer says. “They hook a crane on it and sling it out of there. Throw it on a truck, lay it on its face, and take it to the back of the yard. It sits around for years until somebody realizes that it’s got a home and we can bring it back to life again.”
The metal structure is entirely original and had all of its bumps and bruises tapped out by Hartlauer’s crew before being repainted. It would be logical to assume then comes the struggle of trying to fix the electrical components that made the sign shine, but in reality 95 percent of the original sockets were in working condition before restoration. The real struggle came when trying to refurbish the rich orange bottom half of the sign, which needed to be replicated and installed.
Remarkably, this isn’t the first run-in Hartlauer has had with the Dunes signage. His company, which opened in Vegas more than 30 years ago, frequently repaired the massive main sign that greeted people as they came to town.
“When I moved to this town in 1979, off the I-15, there was an exit called Flamingo Dunes, and when you got off there, it didn’t go west. It only went east to the Strip. And that was one of the first things you’d see when you came into town and you got onto the Strip … The Dunes was always intriguing, you know, kind of a fun hotel. It always had a lot of action going.”
770 Las Vegas Blvd. N. 702.387.6366. neonmuseum.org
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